Technology

Android 9.0 ‘Pie’, which was first unveiled at Google’s annual developer conference in May, will use artificial intelligence to adapt to how you use the device The next version of Google’s Android operating system, Android 9.0, will be called Pie. It will be initially available on Google’s Pixel phones starting today. Android 9.0 ‘Pie’, which was first unveiled at Google’s annual developer conference in May, will use artificial intelligence to adapt to how you use the device. For instance, Android will set screen brightness by studying your manual adjustments, rather than automatically switching to a certain level based on ambient light. It will use machine learning to learn to how consumers use apps in order to prioritize battery powe...

The Justice Srikrishna Committee has presented its draft of India’s newest data privacy bill but before it becomes a law, the technology industry is voicing its support strongly in favor of the law primarily safeguarding customer data. The much-awaited white paper on the proposed data protection regime, following the SC judgement in August 2017, that underlined the need for data protection laws to protect the privacy of individuals, was released by the government last month. The judgement recognizes the role of data-driven innovation (DDI) for the growth of economies, and for job creation. But it emphasises that the data so collected be utilised for legitimate purposes. The white paper proposes a data protection framework based on the following seven principles: technology agn...

Multiple experts cited artificial intelligence as a force multiplier amplifying existing threats. Axios Future Editor Steve LeVine explains how AI creates a danger all its own: For the U.S. and China, AI is the equivalent of the Cold War arms race. The security and political apparatus in both countries view dominating the AI future as both an economic and military imperative. The reason is the nature of AI — a general-purpose technology that will spawn today-unknown industries and weapons classes. Once a country possesses a machine with human intelligence, it could have the capability to keep all rivals at bay in perpetuity. But only China has made this a national strategic goal and put enormous sums behind getting there. The U.S. has yet to take this step, instead relying on private indus...

Amazon is leaning into Alexa and betting that voice ordering is the next big retail trend — but declining market share against Google Home and Chinese competitors as well as a rare leak of Alexa numbers suggest it’s struggling to make headway. The bottom line: Fewer than 2% of Amazon Alexa users have used Alexa to buy something in 2018, the Information reports, citing company sources. That number is even lower for repeat users, with just 10% of those purchasers buying something else. The backdrop: After capturing a whopping 80% of the smart speaker market in 2017, per market research firm CB Insights, Amazon’s share slipped to 28% in 2018, as Google and Chinese . This year, Google has overtaken Amazon, and Chinese players Alibaba, Baidu and Xiaomi have also grabbed pieces of th...

Facebook has had conversations with large banks about getting access to their customers’ data for new features, the Wall Street Journal reports. Why it matters: Facebook’s recent privacy controversies may collide with its attempts to keep users engaged, and the Journal reported that one of the banks had exited conversations with the company over privacy questions. A Facebook spokesperson told the newspaper that it doesn’t “use purchase data from banks or credit card companies for ads.”

Early in 2017, Google added a feature to Google Maps that lets you opt to share your location in (near) real time with your close friends and family. Now they’re fleshing out that info with another important little detail: your phone’s remaining battery charge. It looks like this: Wondering why anyone might care about the status of your battery? If you try to ping someone’s location and their phone is dead, there’s not much an app can do. Most location-sharing apps will just sit there and spin while they wait for some sort of response, leaving you to worry about all the reasons their phone might not be responding with a current location. Did they lose signal? Did someone steal their phone? By clueing you in on whether someone’s phone is just about to die, you’ve at least got a better idea ...

Initially, it appears limited to photo syncing and Android handsets. Back at its Build conference in May, Microsoft showed Your Phone, a Windows 10 app (with companion apps on Android and iOS) that helped bridge between the smartphone world and the PC world. The company showed syncing of photos, SMS messages, and notifications between the phone and the PC, hoping to put an end to time-honored traditions such as e-mailing yourself a picture you took on your phone just so you can use it on your computer. The latest Insider Preview build of this autumn’s Windows 10 update, released yesterday, finally enables this syncing. Or at least, it enables the Windows-side portion of it. The phone-side updates are merely “coming soon.” An Android app, requiring Android 7.0 or be...

Most of the Windows 10 builds published in the Insider program don’t come with ISO disk images, so the Windows 10 installer doesn’t get a ton of scrutiny. Every now and then, however, ISOs are published (in theory every time there’s a build pushed to the slow channel) allowing for fresh installs. Twitter user Tero Alhonen has spotted a new installation option in the latest ISO: Windows 10 Enterprise for Remote Sessions. As the name rather implies, the Windows 10 variant supports multiple users logged in to multiple remote desktop sessions simultaneously, with at least 10 concurrent users allowed. Some kind of remote desktop capability has been a part of Windows since Windows 2000 (and before that with third-party extensions or a special version of Windows NT 4), but Micro...